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This is an elementary summary of
some of
Hegel's more important logical blunders; it has been written for
those new to the subject, not experts. This isn't meant to be an academic exercise,
so the
many complications that logicians are aware of in this area have had to be ignored.
Anyone who still finds fault with the oversimplifications below should re-read
the first sentence of this paragraph.

I have posted five much more detailed and technical
analyses of Hegel's many errors here,
here,
here,
here, and
here. The
disastrous political implications of 'the dialectic' (upside down or 'the
right way up') have been exposed here.

Finally, some readers might be tempted to conclude that
the points made below are merely 'semantic', and therefore have no real substance.
In response, it is worth reminding ourselves that Hegel's core logical arguments depend precisely on
'semantic' issues such as these. Except, it is my contention that he badly
screwed up. So, if anyone still objects to 'semantic' issues, they should pick a
fight with Hegel, not me.

(ii) His unwise acceptance of a throw-away comment he found in
Spinoza's
unpublished work (i.e., that "every
determination is also a negation" -- which neither Hegel nor Spinoza even so
much as attempted to justify), and from:

(iii) A logico-linguistic dodge invented in the Middle Ages.

As a
result, Hegel thought that certain sentences contained an in-built contradiction.

If we use Lenin's example, we can
see where this idea came from, and hence where it goes wrong:

First of all, Hegel accepted a theory invented by
Medieval Theologians (now called the
Identity Theory of Predication),
which 'allowed' him to re-interpret
propositions like J1 in the following manner:

J2: John is identical with Manhood.

The former "is" of
predication
has now been replaced by an "is" of identity (paraphrased by "is
identical with").

[Predication involves saying something about someone or
something. So, J1 can be used to say something about John. "John" is the
subject term, and "a man" is the predicate expression. The verb "is" linking them
is called the "copula". When this "is" is turned into
an "is" of
identity, J1 becomes the following monstrosity: "John is identical with a man."
That is why
J2 is often used in its place, even though it, too, is bizarre.]

Greatly simplified, the argument -- which,
incidentally, oscillated recklessly between talk about talk and talk
about the world, that is, between (a) how language works and (b) what
language is supposedly about -- went roughly as follows: Since John can't be identical with a general term
("a man"/"Manhood" -- or, rather, with what it supposedly represents, a
Universal), we must conclude the
following:

J3: John is not identical with Manhood.

The argument then continued: however, if John is a man, he must be identical with (or, at least, he must share
in) what other men
are, so we must now conclude:

[Readers who might prefer to consult Hegel's argument in
all its glory can access it here.
Its logical ramifications are spelt out in detail in a (Marxist) paper
I have reproduced and then criticised,
here, and from a detailed
commentary on it, reproduced
here. Lenin transcribed much of this
material from Hegel into his Philosophical Notebooks, and wrote in the margin: "This is
very important for understanding dialectics." In relation to that, and the philosophical
background to Hegel's argument (which was in fact a response to
David Hume's
criticism of rationalist theories of causation) -- as well as Lenin's appropriation of
this aspect of Hegel's theory -- see here.
(Rationalism is explained
here.)]

Anyway,
Hegel thought this showed that movement was built into our concepts as
thought passed from one pole (one opposite conclusion) to another (i.e., from
conclusions about John to negations, and then double negations, about him), which
suggested to Hegel that
speculative (i.e., properly 'philosophical') thought, and thus all of reality, had dialectics built into it.

[He concluded this about 'reality' since he was an
Absolute Idealist and believed that such thoughts mirrored, if not
constituted, the world. How that works is best left to one side for now!]

It also led Hegel into casting doubt on the validity of the
so-called 'Law of Identity'
[LOI] -- a
'Law', incidentally, that can't be found in Aristotle's work
-- despite what many dialecticians would have us believe. It, too, was invented
by Medieval Theologians.

As a result,
Hegel argued that it was important to consider the LOI stated
negatively. The LOI, as it had been passed down to Hegel, went as follows: "A is
equal to A", or "A = A" (where "A", it seems, could
stand for such diverse things as: objects, processes, predicates, concepts, relations,
relational expressions, or, indeed, anything he wanted it to stand for!).

[A supposed instance of this 'Law' (and an example
Hegel himself used) is "A planet is a planet". (Shorter Logic, §115.) The radical confusion
sloppy logic like this generates -- and upon which Hegel's core
arguments actually depend -- is exposed
here.]

Hegel then translated the LOI into the following
'negative form': "A cannot at the
same time be A and not-A", which he also claimed was the so-called
Law of Non-contradiction
[LOC].

[Incidentally, to save confusion, I have put "A" in bold type to
help distinguish it from the normal use of the capital letter "A".]

However, in order to proceed, Hegel not only employed a barrage of impenetrably obscure
jargon, he relied on some hopelessly sloppy semantics (as noted above).

[Semantics -- what words or symbols are supposed to designate, refer to, signify,
or mean.]

Hegel plainly thought he could ignore the logical
and grammatical
distinctions that exist in our use of certain terms --, or, at
least, between the role they occupy in sentences. More importantly in
this regard he thought he could ignore the distinction between naming
and describing. This 'enabled'
him to bamboozle his readers, using what amounted to a series of verbal tricks; from
the ensuing
confusion, hey presto, 'the dialectic' emerged like a rabbit from a hat.

So, Hegel's core argument was that the LOI,
stated negatively, implied the LOC (why this was important for Hegel will
be considered presently):

When the
principles of Essence are taken as essential principles of thought they become
predicates of a presupposed subject, which, because they are essential, is
"everything". The propositions thus arising have been stated as universal Laws
of Thought. Thus the first of them, the maxim of Identity, reads: Everything is
identical with itself,
A = A: and negatively, A cannot at the same time be
A and Not-A. This maxim, instead of being a true law
of thought, is nothing but the law of abstract understanding. The propositional
form itself contradicts it: for a proposition always promises a distinction
between subject and predicate; while the present one does not fulfil what its
form requires. But the Law is particularly set aside by the following so-called
Laws of Thought, which make laws out of its opposite.
It is asserted that the maxim of Identity, though it cannot be proved, regulates
the procedure of every consciousness, and that experience shows it to be
accepted as soon as its terms are apprehended. To this alleged experience of the
logic books may be opposed the universal experience that no mind thinks or forms
conceptions or speaks in accordance with this law, and that no existence of any
kind whatever conforms to it. [Hegel, Shorter Logic§115. Bold added.]

[See what I meant by "impenetrable"! And
he was being relatively clear here! (Any who doubt this should perhaps read
this extended passage
devoted to this topic and then, maybe, think again!) For anyone who wants a
summary of Hegel's 'argument', the following two sources are reasonably clear
(that is, 'reasonably clear' to readerswho are adept atdeciphering obscure jargon):
Dulckeit (1989) and Pippin (1978). As noted above, I have critically dissected the first of
these,
here.]

Hence, from the LOI -- i.e., from A =
A
-- Hegel thought he could obtain "A cannot at the same time be A
and not-A", which, while it is supposed to be the LOI 'stated
negatively', is also supposed to be the LOC. This is a key point in the argument, since he believed that
a commitment to the LOI was tantamount to denying that change occurred in reality
-- an unsupported assumption that has been appropriated equally uncritically
and then parroted by
Marxist dialecticians and Hegelians ever since.
The denial of the LOC, therefore, was central to establishing change as a
fundamental feature of existence.

So, Hegel reasoned that if change is universal (an
idea he pinched from another mystic,
Heraclitus, who
in turn concocted this 'universal truth' from his (mistaken) conclusions about the
possibilities involved in stepping
into a river!), then nothing could possibly be identical with itself,
and so everything must contain, or imply, a contradiction: A is at the
same time not-A!

Contradiction is the very
moving principle of the world: and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is
unthinkable. The only thing correct in that statement is that contradiction
is not the end of the matter, but cancels itself. But contradiction, when
cancelled, does not leave abstract identity; for that is itself only one side of
the contrariety. The proximate result of opposition (when realised as
contradiction) is the Ground, which contains identity as well as difference
superseded and deposited to elements in the completer notion. [Hegel
(1975), p.174;
Essence as Ground of Existence, §119.]

[B]ut contradiction is the
root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a
contradiction within it that it moves, has an urge and activity. [Hegel (1999),
p.439, §956.]

In fact, identity is no enemy of change, for if two
objects are identical, they will both change equally quickly -- otherwise they
can't have been identical.

Moreover, if an object is no longer identical with its
former self, it must have changed.

So, identity doesn't prevent change (an odd
idea in itself!); it simply enables us to decide if and when
it has occurred.

With these observations the entire 'dialectic' completely
falls apart.

Be this as it may, Hegel failed to notice that there is no connection
whatsoever between the LOI
and the LOC. The LOI concerns the conditions
under which an object is supposedly identical with itself, or with
something else; it isn't about the alleged identity between propositions, nor
yet
clauses with
propositions, or even clauses with clauses.

In fact, this is where the sleight-of-hand occurs.
Hegel's sloppy semantics (mentioned earlier) masked this serious error. Allowing A to slide effortlessly between various denotations (i.e.,
between different meanings -- one minute it stands for an object, the next a
sentence, the next a predicate expression, the next a 'concept', the next a
process, the next a relational expression, the next...)
'enabled' Hegel to perform the aforementioned verbal conjuring trick.

Indeed, if a proposition has no identity (i.e., if
we allow A to stand now for a proposition, not an object), it
wouldn't be a proposition to begin with. That is, if it were unclear what was
being
proposed -- i.e., put forward for consideration, which is what
propositions do or can be used to do -- then plainly nothing has yet been proposed, and so nothing
can follow from
'it'.

In that case, the alleged 'negative' version of the
LOI has nothing whatsoever to do with the connection between a proposition and its
contradictory.

The LOC, on the other hand, concerns the
truth-functional connection**
between propositions (or clauses),
not objects (since objects can't be true or false). In its simplest form it concerns the conjunction of a
proposition with its negation (e.g., "Today is Tuesday and today isn't Tuesday"
-- said at high noon on any particular day). It
has nothing to do with objects or their supposed identity.

[Readers might like to check out my
more technical comments on this topic posted at Wikipedia.]

[**"Truth-functional" is a
technical term for the type of
link that exists, or might exist, between propositions. In this particular case, if a
certain proposition is true its negation is false, and vice versa -- the
truth-status of one of them directly affects the truth-status of the other. Unfortunately, the full details of
Hegel's moves here are rather complex, so I have left them out. Interested readers can access them
here,
here,
here, and
here.]

Only by confusing objects (or the names thereof) with
propositions (or clauses) -- that is, by confusing objects or their names with what we
say about them -- only by doing this was Hegel able to conjure the
'dialectic' into existence.

[His other 'arguments' are merely window
dressing. They, too, will be demolished in Essay Twelve Parts Five
and Six at my site, when
they are published.]

We name objects and persons (among other things). Typically,
only then can we say things
about them, and we do the latter in sentences. These
familiar features of language are quite distinct.

[Later on I'll explain why it is important that they
stay that way. (Admittedly, we have other ways of referring to things, but they
only complicate the picture, they don't alter
it.)]

Furthermore, propositions aren't objects.
Nor are they the names of
anything, as Hegel appears to have assumed. If they were, they couldn't be used
to say anything. Sure, we use various inscriptions (words, phrases,
clauses, sentences, utterances) to articulate our thoughts -- that is, we write
words on paper, type letters on computer screens, or simply say things --, but when we do
any of these, the inscriptions we employ to that end work as symbols (i.e.,
they signify things for us, and to us, and convey meaning). We achieve this by
the way we employ linguistic resources like these in accord with the grammatical complexity our ancestors built
into language.

To see this, just look at any object or collection
of objects, and, assuming they don't represent a coded message
of some sort, ask yourself what it/they say to you. You
might be tempted to reply that it/they say this or that, but in order to report
what it/they allegedly say, you will be forced to articulate whatever that is in a
proposition, or some other form of sentence. You couldn't do this by merely reproducing the original objects,
or, indeed, any other objects; nor could you do so by just naming them.

This isn't surprising since objects have no social history, intellect or
language, whereas we do, and have.

Naming is like setting out the pieces on a chess
board ready for a game. A move in a game is like a proposition (describing or
explaining, for example). While both of these activities depend on each other, only someone
intent on ruining a game (or who had a hidden agenda) would deliberately confuse the two.

Unfortunately, Engels and Lenin swallowed this spurious Hegelian
word magic, hook, line and sinker -- and that is because neither of them
were logicians. Despite this, they both had a wildly inflated
opinion of Hegel's expertise in this area.

[This isn't to malign these two
great revolutionaries; others, who should know better, have similarly
allowed themselves to be duped.
Exactly
why they have all fallen for verbal con-tricks like this (and not just
Hegel's sleight-of-hand) is explained in
Essay Nine Part Two.]

However, because of their misguided respect for Hegel, Marxists
ever since have been saddled with this
garbled 'logic'
(upside down, or 'the right way up').

To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic]
with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics
(as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently,
the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the
individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The
universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every
individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a
fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only
approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters
incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by
thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena,
processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of
necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the
contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say
John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the
essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other….

Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a "nucleus" ("cell") the
germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a
property of all human knowledge in general. [Lenin
(1961), i.e., Philosophical Notebooks,pp.359-60.]

Both of these comrades plainly felt they could 'derive' fundamental truths
about reality, valid for all of space and time -- not from a scientific investigation of the world --, but from
juggling with a few words viewed through Hegel's distorting lens!

[Apologies for that mixed metaphor!]

And yet dialecticians still tell us with a straight
face that their theoryhasn't beenimposed on the facts!

Unfortunately, the sentence Lenin used -- J1 (repeated below)
-- is descriptive. We use sentences like this to describe the individuals
concerned --, so it can't be treated in the way Hegel imagined it could (that
is, as an identity statement). In fact, Aristotle would have approached it
differently. In order to explain its structure, he would have said something
like the following:

A1: Manhood applies to John.

[J1: John is a man.

J2: John is identical with Manhood.]

In other words, in J1 the predicate expression ("...is a man", or,
traditionally, "man") is used to describe John; it isn't expressing an
identity, unlike J2.

Indeed, it makes no sense to suppose with Hegel that John (or his name) could be identical with a general term
-- any more than it would make sense to suppose that you, for example, are identical
with a
conjunction, a
preposition, or an
adverb --, or with what any of these
supposedly
'represent'.

[As noted above, Hegel thought he could get away
with this by running together talk about talk with talk about the
world. I have explored this verbal trick more fully
here.]

In which case, this example of bowdlerised Medieval 'logic' isn't simply misguided, it isbizarre in the extreme!

It surely takes a special sort of 'genius'
(which we are assured by Lenin that Hegel possessed) to suppose that an object
or individual
like John could be identical with a predicate expression, or with the 'abstraction' it
supposedly designated!

To be sure, Hegelians might want to call
propositions like J1 "essential", in that such sentences supposedly tell us what kind of being John is;
that is, they help identify a particular as an individual of a certain sort,
in this case as a human being (if we ignore for the moment the sexism implied
here!). Even if
that were so -- and there are good reasons for supposing it isn't (on that see Essay
Thirteen Part Two, when it is published) --, that still wouldn't affect the
counter-argument presented here. Nor would it affect the point that J1 is
still descriptive. It certainly doesn't justify turning J1 into J2.
[On this, see
here.]

And, of course, identifying something isn't the same
as asserting an identity relation.

For example,
if
squaddie NN is asked whether or not he can identify Osama bin Laden in a line-up,
and he replies, "Yes,
Sarge! Osama
is identical with Osama, Sarge!", he would risk
being put on a charge. On the other hand, if he points to one of the suspects
and says, "That's
him, Sarge!", he wouldn't.

If we return to the original sentence,
translated this time into something more like Hegel-speak, we can perhaps see more clearly where
the argument goes astray:

J2: Johnis identical with Manhood.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to explain what the extra "is"
here (highlighted in red) now means. But, this extra "is" has to be used
in order to make the alleged identity
between John and Manhood (or whatever) plain.

[If we used "John Identical
Manhood" instead, this would no longer be a proposition, but a list! (More on that presently.)]

In fact, if all such uses of "is" expressed disguised identities (as we are
assured they must), J2 would now have to become:

J2a: Johnis identicalwith identical with Manhood,

as the red "is"
from J2 is replaced with what it is 'dialectically' supposed to mean, i.e., "is identical with" --, in
turquoise, in J2a.

After another such 'dialectical' switch J2a would
then become:

J2b: Johnis identical with
identicalwith identical with Manhood,

as the turquoise "is"
we had to use
in J2a is replaced by "is identical with" to yield J2b. And so on:

J2c: John is identical withidentical with
identicalwith identical with Manhood.

These untoward moves can only be halted if we argue
that "is" doesn't always express an identity in such propositions. But, dialecticians gave up
the right to lodge that particular appeal the moment they accepted The Identity Theory of
Predication.

Fortunately,
Aristotle's approach short-circuits this; there is no "is" at all in A1:

A1: Manhood applies to John.

By way of
contrast, Hegel's 'analysis' can't avoid a
verbal explosion like this; indeed, it positively invites it.

Anyone who thinks this is just "pedantic"
nit-picking need only reflect on the fact that Hegel -- or anyone who agrees
with him --, can't explain
this 'theory' without using J2:

J2:Johnis identical with Manhood.

But, as we can now see, Hegel's theory stalls at this point, for this extra "is"
can't be one of identity (for the above reasons); and if it isn't,
then the theory that tells us that "is" is always one of
identity (in such contexts) is defective.

In fact, this Hegelian trick can only be
performed in
Indo-European
languages. By-and-large, other language groups don't possess this particular
grammatical feature.
The above moves depend solely on the
subject-predicate
form taking the
copula "is"
(or its cognates)
found almost exclusively in the aforementioned family of languages.

[Hegelians often respond that these comments only
apply to 'essential' judgements, which means that the above criticisms are
misguided. I have dealt with that response throughout Essay Three
Part One.]

This shows that Hegel's 'logic' isn't just bizarre,
it is parochial in the extreme!

[Where, "S" = "Subject", "P" = "Predicate"
-- or, rather, if we concentrate on its linguistic form, "P" = "Predicate Expression";
in which case "S" will designate a Proper Name or some other singular
term (on that, see below).]

Now, we already have a facility in language that allows us to express identity
-- and genuinely so. For example, this is an uncontroversial identity statement:

G2: Cicero is Tully.

["Tully" was Cicero's other name.
Cicero was a
reactionary
politician, jurist, orator and author who lived in
Ancient Rome about the same time as
Julius Caesar.
Colloquially, G2 means "'Tully' is Cicero's other name".]

So, G2 quite legitimately means:

G2a: Cicerois
identical with Tully.

[However, the extra brown "is" here is now an "is" of predication, not
identity! So, the verbal explosion we met earlier isn't implied by G2a.]

Or:

G3: A = B.

[Where "A" is "Cicero" and "B" is "Tully"; using "="
as the identity sign, again.]

G2 and G3 express an unambiguous use of the "is" of identity -- no problem with
that -- whereas, in G2a, the brown "is" is one of predication.

However, it is important to note that the identity
relation here operates between two names or singular
terms (again, on this, see below) -- or, between two named individuals, depending on how identity is finally understood. This is typical of the use of
the "is" of identity.

Now, just look at the superficial similarity between the
following two linguistic forms -- especially between J1/G1 (predication) and G2 (identity):

J1: John is a man.

G1: S is P.

G2: Cicero is Tully.

G3: A = B.

Highly influential Ancient and Medieval logicians
and grammarians noticed this, too, and combined the two distinct forms into one, reading the
"is" of predication as an "is" of identity. [Why they
did this will be explained presently.]

But, this move now turns the predicate expression "P" into a
name, in parallel with the Proper Name ("Tully") used in G2.

As noted a few paragraphs back, identities concern
the relation between names, or between other
singular terms (or between what they designate) -- for example:

Here, the first singular term (highlighted in blue) is
a
definite description;the second singular term ("George W Bush") is a Proper
Name.

Unfortunately, given this view, "P"
now becomes a Proper Name -- in which case, it can no longer be a predicate expression.

[Why that is so will be
explained presently, too.]

As we have seen, Hegel adopted this medieval
analysis,
deliberately conflating the "is" of
identity with the "is" of predication. This then 'allowed' him to claim that propositions
like J1 were in fact identity statements.

Of course, this means that the core of
Hegel's
'logic' is based solely on what is in effect a grammatical
stipulation -- i.e., it is based on a dogmatic assertion that these two forms
(predicative and identity expressions) are one
and the same,
which move creates the intractable problems we met
above --, but which stipulation Hegel nowhere adequately
justified.

Moreover, as we will soon see, this particular stipulation
actually destroys the capacity language has for
expressing generality. Predicate expressions enable us to say
general things about named individuals or objects (etc.) -- for example,
that John is a mechanic, or a hospital porter, or even a man. Turning
predicate expressions into names
stops them doing this, preventing them from being used to say anything
general -- or, indeed, anything at all, as we will soon find out.

So, given a 'Hegel-make-over', J1 becomes J1a (and/or J1b):

J1: John is a man.

J1a: John = man/Manhood.

J1b: John is identical with man/Manhood.

Hence, on this view, just as "Tully" names Cicero,
"man" names Manhood --, or perhaps even the class, 'category', or
'concept', MAN.

As noted above, the 'rationale' underlying these
linguistic moves had already been
laid down by earlier
theorists and mystics, who were, among other things, concerned to explain the
alleged union or identity between the human soul and 'God'/'Being'. Hence,
they played
around with the Greek verb "to be" (and thus with the "is" of predication) until it was made to say what they wanted it
to say.

There is in fact no non-theological reason for adopting the
Identity Theory of Predication, which also helps explain why it was
concocted by theologians
and mystics, and why Hegel, the
Mystery-Meister Himself,
eagerly appropriated it.

[Of course, none of these moves took place in an ideological
or political vacuum; a brief outline of some of the relevant issues can be found
here.]

Anyway, logicians and grammarians after Aristotle, and especially
those working in
the
Middle Ages
(who also used this theory to help them tackle, and then try to explain, the incomprehensible Christian Trinity),
began to conflate these two distinct forms as a matter of course. This fed into, and was fed in return
by, an increasingly elaborate and complex metaphysic
supposedly centred on the 'ultimate structure
of reality' and the relation of 'Thought' to 'Being'/'God' --, which
speculative gyrations were based solelyon: (i) This
linguistic sleight-of-hand, (ii) Mystical Theology --,and (iii) Nothing
more!

A consistent materialism cannot proceed from
principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition,
self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms
may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken
from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice....
[Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

'The dialectic' is plainly based on defective a priori
dogmatics of the sort castigated by Novack (Engels
and other dialecticians have also said similar things), but not on evidence.
Sure, evidence was
often sought after the event in order to 'illustrate' the
'laws' that dialecticians uncritically imported into Marxism from Hegel, but the original theses themselves were
derived in the way that Novack noted, by 'pure thought'. And, as we saw in
Essay Seven Part One, the
'evidence' dialecticians have subsequently scraped-together fails miserably to
substantiate this theory,
anyway.

So, in the end, J1/G1 and G2-type sentences were modelled along the lines
expressed by G4 and G5 -- i.e., as identity statements:

But, and once more, these moves turn predicates expressions into Proper Names -- i.e., "a man" becomes
the Proper Name of Manhood (or, of the 'Concept MAN'), which, plainly, it isn't.
Naming isn't the same as describing. We name our
children when they are born, we don't simply describe
them. If we do subsequently describe them, we use predicate
expressions, not names. We don't name children
with phrases like "is a man", or "is tall". Not even pop stars do
that to their off-spring! Moreover, we describe the world around
us, we don't
simply name it.

The untoward result of buying onto
linguistic and semantic confusion like this was recently outlined for us by Professor E J Lowe:

What is the problem of predication? In a nutshell, it is this. Consider any
simple subject-predicate sentence, such as..., "Theaetetus sits". How are we to
understand the different roles of the subject and the predicate in this
sentence, "Theaetetus" and "sits" respectively? The role of "Theaetetus" seems
straightforward enough: it serves to name, and thereby to refer to or stand for,
a certain particular human being. But what about "sits"? Many philosophers have
been tempted to say that this also refers to or stands for something, namely, a
property or universal that Theaetetus possesses or exemplifies: the property of
sitting. This is said to be a universal, rather than a particular, because it
can be possessed by many different individuals.

But now we have a problem, for this view of the matter seems to turn the
sentence "Theaetetus sits" into a mere list of (two) names, each naming
something different, one a particular and one a universal: "Theaetetus, sits."
But a list of names is not a sentence because it is not the sort of thing that
can be said to be true or false, in the way that "Theaetetus sits" clearly can.
The temptation now is to say that reference to something else must be involved
in addition to Theaetetus and the property of sitting, namely, the relation of
possessing that Theaetetus has to that property. But it should be evident that
this way of proceeding will simply generate the same problem, for now we have
just turned the original sentence into a list of three names, "Theaetetus,
possessing, sits."

Indeed, we are
now setting out on a vicious infinite regress, which is commonly known as "Bradley's regress", in recognition of its modern discoverer, the British
idealist philosopher
F. H.
Bradley. Bradley used the regress to argue in favour of absolute
idealism.... [Lowe
(2006).]

So, a
collection of names is just that -- a list -- and lists say nothing, just as
objects say nothing. For example -- coded messages aside, once more -- the
following list fails to say anything:

L1: John, book, car.

L1 can only be made to say something if
its constituent words are
articulated with other expressions that don't function as names:

L2: John found my book in his car.

L3: John lost your book and sold his
car.

L4: John isn't mentioned in that
book, but his car is.

L5: John has vanished, so has your
book and my car.

L6: John can book you a car tomorrow.

L7: Give John a book to read while I
repair his car.

L8: John owns neither a book nor a
car.

You just can't see any of the above in L1. [Well,
did any of you see one or more of L2-L8 in L1 before you read them?] But, there
are countless sentences that none of us have ever heard before which can be put
together from just these three nouns -- but only if we use expressions that don't function as nouns, to that
end.

So, our use of expressions that aren't names,
and which don't function like names, allows us to generate an endless number of sentences
with different meanings -- meanings that would be unavailable to us if we simply employed
lists of names, or collections
of objects.

Hence, the list from
earlier (i.e., "John
Identical Manhood") has to be articulated with a verb if it is to say something:

J2: John is identical with Manhood.

But, that just generates the problems outlined in
the first part of this Essay!

Of course, it could be objected that there are
languages in which names do describe. For example, Native Americans use names such
as "Sitting
Bull" ("Tatanka Yotanka"), "Crazy
Horse", or "Rain
In The Face", which describe what the individual concerned either did
or was reminiscent of.

Even so, no Native American would argue as follows:

N1: Sitting Bull has just stood up.

N2: Therefore Sitting Bull is no
longer Sitting Bull, he is Standing Bull.

But, they would argue as follows:

N3: That animal over there is a
sitting bull.

N4: It has just stood up, so it's now a standing bull.

[I have deliberately kept these sentences trite so
that the logical point being made isn't obscured by needless complexity.]

This shows that the logical use of names is distinct
from that of descriptions. Any contingent traditional, psychological, or
idiosyncratic associations a name has are logically irrelevant to its use as a
name, no matter how important such quirks of language are to a given culture.

Hence, the name "Sitting Bull" is a logical
unit and cannot be split up like a description can. [Examples of the latter
are given here.] That is
partly because, as
Aristotle noted (De
Interpretatione, Section 3), names are tenseless, but predicate
expressions aren't. So, we still call Julius Caesar, "Julius Caesar", even though he is dead,
and even though there was a time when he had no name at all -- i.e., at the moment
of his birth.

The above examples bring this out since change
(intimated by the use of suitably tensed verbs like "stood" or "sitting") is
expressed by our
use of tensed predicate expressions, not names. That is why, whatever Sitting Bull
did, he is still Sitting Bull. There is no past, present or future tense of names
like "Sitting Bull", "Julius Caesar", or "Karl Marx".

[These and other complications are discussed at
length in
Geach (1968), pp.22-80.
(This in fact links to the 3rd
(1980) edition, so the page numbers are different:
pp.49-104. See also
here.]

So, for Hegel,
"a man" became the Proper Name of Manhood, which was then dignified by
being called an "abstraction",
or even worse, an "essence" -- both of which were conjured into existence
by this linguistic dodge, and nothing more.

In this way, then, dialectics (in the post-Hegelian sense of this word, upside
down or the 'right way up') arose out ofegregiously defective logic
compounded by
a series of crass errors which were further aggravated by an inept misconstrual of what is in effect minor
aspect of a sub-branch of Indo-European
grammar!

Hard to believe? Well,
Marx himself
indicated that this was indeed so:

The philosophers have only
to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is
abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual
world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a
realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life. [Marx
and Engels: The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphases added.]

So, Traditional Philosophy and 'dialectics'
(again, in the post-Hegelian sense of that word) are based on just such "distorted language".

Indeed, the analysis outlined in this Essay (and
elsewhere at this site) underlines
why Marx was right.

[Although, it isn't being argued
here that Marx would have agreed with this assessment! On the other hand, if
he were
consistent, he should have!]

Now, even if the above analysis is incorrect in some way, neither
Aristotle, nor Hegel (nor anyone else, for that matter) has been able to explain how or why contingent features of
a minor aspect of Indo-European grammar
could possibly have such profound implications built into them --, that is, how
they could contain or reveal fundamental truths about
the deep
structure of reality and how it changes, valid for all of space and time.

Finally, some might want to argue that to refute
Hegel is ipso facto (and ironically) to confirm the dialectic. Hence, in trying to refute
Hegel, this Essay refutes itself!

However, the above considerations don't amount to,
nor were they intended to be, a refutation of Hegel. In order to refute his work,
one would have to show it to be false. On the contrary, what I have done here is
show that his work is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether or
not it is false.